Château Roc de Cambes - Tertre Roteboeuf | François Mitjavile

Château Roc de Cambes

The story of a renaissance on the heights of Bordeaux

When you arrive at Château Roc de Cambes, you're struck by its extraordinary location. The wine estate seems to be suspended between earth and sky in the heart of the Côtes de Bourg, stretching across hillsides plunging towards the Gironde. The landscape forms a natural amphitheater that captures the sun while benefiting from the cool, tempering sea breezes. This exceptional site, already renowned for its 14th-century cellars, underwent a veritable renaissance in 1988, when François Mitjavile and his wife Émilie settled here. Their arrival marked the start of a singular adventure: to transform this faded terroir into a benchmark for Bordeaux wines.

François Mitjavile: a visionary against the grain

An atypical figure in the wine world, François Mitjavile does not come from one of Bordeaux's great dynasties. A passionate winegrower and, above all, a visionary, he has forged a reputation for himself by working with rigor, intuition and a keen sense of time, notably at Château Figeac. After shaping the identity of his Château Tertre Roteboeuf in Saint-Émilion, which he quickly renamed Tertre Roteboeuf, he applied the same philosophy to Roc de Cambes : to give priority to the sincerity of the fruit and respect for the terroir, rather than following fashionable trends. In this way, François and Émilie are building a family vision in which humanity, patience and observation take precedence over the quest for yield.

A winemaking philosophy at the service of time

What is striking about the Mitjavile family is their relationship with time. The wine estate always waits for the grapes to reach full ripeness, even if it means postponing the harvest well beyond the average. This quest for maturity, sometimes pushed to the point of over-ripeness, gives the wines a unique depth and warmth. The vines are cultivated using sustainable methods and permanent grass cover, practices that respect biodiversity and natural balances. Pruning is short and precise, favoring uniformity of ripeness on each vine. In the cellar, ageing is long and meticulous, marked by the demanding use of high-quality barrels. Here, the wine is gently "civilized", eventually offering a rich, unadulterated palette of aromas.

Terroirs and grape varieties: the duality of Roc de Cambes and Domaine de Cambes

Château Roc de Cambes stands on 12 hectares of south/southwest-facing clay-limestone slopes, planted with vines averaging 45 to 50 years old. Merlot predominates (85%), complemented by Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and a little Malbec. The exposure, combined with the breeze from the estuary, ensures gradual, healthy ripening of the grapes.

A separate wine estate, Domaine de Cambes, is also owned by the Mitjavile family. Located in the Bordeaux appellation, on the paluds at the foot of the hillside, this wine estate expresses a different face of terroir: softer, more immediate, with different sunshine and sandy-clay soils.

The cuvées: two faces of the same vision

While the Roc de Cambes cuvées offer depth and ageing potential, the Domaine de Cambesse cuvées deliver sooner, while retaining the unique Mitjavile signature. The Domaine de Cambes cuvée offers immediate pleasure, seducing with its roundness, ripe fruit notes and suppleness. Gourmet from its youth, it illustrates Mitjavile's ability to magnify even the most modest terroirs.

In contrast, the cuvée Roc de Cambes (Côtes de Bourg) requires patience. It is a more serious, more structured wine, where the depth of Merlot meets the freshness of Cabernet and the power of Malbec. After a few years in the cellar, it reveals its full maturity, with intense aromas of black fruits and spices. In both cases, the same philosophy shines through: sincere wines, made to last, but also to move.

Tertre Rotebœuf: cultivating the uniqueness of Saint-Émilion

A history of land and family

Château Tertre Rotebœuf is located on a predominantly south-facing clay hillside in the Saint Émilion Grand Cru terroir. The story of this wine estate began in the 1970s, when Émilie Mitjavile inherited the family property. Right from the start, François and Émilie decided to turn it into a laboratory of excellence, renaming it Tertre Roteboeuf. The name alone evokes the terroir: "le tertre que les bœufs avaient du mal à gravir" ("the mound that the oxen had trouble climbing"), a powerful image that conveys the ruggedness of the hillside and the demanding nature of the land.

François Mitjavile: the artisan of great Bordeaux wines

At Le Tertre Rotebœuf, François Mitjavile deploys his singular, resolutely independent style. His reputation is built on meticulous attention to detail: low yields, very late harvests, ripeness sometimes pushed to the extreme, ageing for two to three years in Radoux barrels, many of which are new, depending on the vintage. All this is combined in a single Saint Émilion Grand Cru cuvée, soberly entitled Tertre Rotebœuf, which goes against the trend in Bordeaux for multiple cuvées. This radical choice has won him the admiration of the critics. The Revue des Vins de France awarded him a third star in 2020, in recognition of his independence and consistent approach over the years.

Terroir and grape varieties: a rare balance

The vineyard stretches over a dozen hectares of clay slopes, where the south-facing aspect ensures that the Merlot (around 85%) and Cabernet Franc (around 15%) grapes reach a high level of ripeness. In this unique and "exotic" terroir, the forty-year-old vines concentrate the quintessence of Saint Emilion terroir, and give the wines an intensity that's out of the ordinary.

Cuvée Tertre Rotebœuf: a Bordeaux icon

The Tertre Rotebœuf cuvée is the embodiment of the Mitjavile vision. Each vintage seduces with its powerful aromas of black fruits, truffles, chocolate and fine spices, and its full, sensual body. But above all, it's the persistent freshness of the wine that really shakes things up and demonstrates the genius of Mitjavile. Add to this its prodigious ageing potential, and you have one of the greatest Saint Emilion Grand Cru ever made.